09/08/2009

A few weeks ago, I was running by a restaurant that serves vegetarian fare on a somewhat dire stretch of 10th Street in the East Village. They had a table offering free samples. People commuting to work that particular morning could sample what this ten-table place had to offer.

When I first saw the sample sign, I thought "what a nice idea." I'd noticed the restaurant before, but never really been interested in it (probably because I'm usually looking for something a little more indulgent when I'm out in the neighborhood). This move made me reconsider. Here's the conversation I could have imagined playing out among the proprietors:

"Get locals on their way to work to actually try us out. Many of these people often make decisions about what to do for dinner earlier in the day, so why not introduce ourself to them when the streets are a little quieter and they can focus on us?"

It made me think of how to engage potential consumers out of the context of use, but at a time that still represents a reasonable context for consideration.

This isn't a new idea for sure. In a sense, advertising is predicated on it and targeting / placement is meant to get you half-way there. Yet I wonder how else it could be more personally and mindfully pursued? Where else could this be applied?

This book is a biography in all its glory (nearly 900 pages one third of which
are end notes, now in softcover). I'm late to the party, but
it blew me away. That's where I pulled the William Blake quote from above. So I decided to write a back-to-school inspired book report on
it...

Gabler chronicles Walt Disney's life and efforts through early childhood through the conception of Walt Disney Studios/Enterprises on to the birth and early evolution of Disneyland. I was amazed by the influence of Disney animation and animators from that time period, as well as the process innovation and tool creation required to constantly push the state of the art (e.g., the invention of the concept/role of a dedicated sketch artist, product placement on TV, etc.).

Disney didn't really do it alone. He attracted his early acolytes by doing the coolest stuff. His mission was to make the highest quality and most inspiring animation possible. Camaraderie developed as young people pursued these goals and made it up as they went along. Even as the definition of quality and inspiration shifted, people knew Disney Studios was the place to be.

For the formative part of his career, nothing would stand in the way of Walt Disney's vision and personal pursuit of quality. Not people, not money and sometimes not even the tastes of the American public. His comrades became first his hands then merely objects to pursue his goals - often easily disposed of and abused. It seems working at the studio downright sucked at times. Gabler's Disney is moody, singularly-focused, ruthless and a tyrant. If something couldn't be made the right way, his way, Walt Disney would berate or delay or disengage completely. Despite all of this, the productively being on the edge somehow worked.

Over time, Disney's approach to the organization changed as did his role in it. Check out Disney's begrudgingly conceived, process-based organizational chart from 1943 (discussed in the book and sent to me by Colin and discussed in atissue):

First, Disney was everywhere and in everything. Then, he was in the
middle. Once this chart was drawn, he found himself at the start with the story. Then, once he was disillusioned with the animation and enthralled with Disneyland, he was nowhere.

There were all kinds of great connections for me in this book, but what really resonated for me is this:

Not only did the development of Walt Disney Studios and Enterprises provide a blueprint, Walt Disney himself was the prototype of creative leadership in all of its gritty, flawed and wonderful glory. We can all be Walt Disney every once in a while.

If you're interested in such things and stuck with me to this point (and want a shorter starting point), I'd also recommend reading the Ed Catmull Pixar piece in HBR and Hugh MacLeod's Ignore Everybody.

07/21/2009

On Saturday I saw something that was pretty striking. I went to the MOMA to see a variety of things, but I was stopped in my tracks by Song Dong's Project 90 show. The piece of work on display is called Waste Not. Here's a snippet from the MOMA description:

A collaboration first conceived of with the artist's mother, the
installation consists of the complete contents of her home, amassed
over fifty years during which the Chinese concept of wu jin qi yong, or
"waste not," was a prerequisite for survival.

Experiencing the piece, I went on a little journey of revelation. I wondered where and how the artist's mother stored everything. I imagined how she might have imagined using what was kept. I saw how foresight and thriftiness becomes a daily, necessary activity: self-insurance against an uncertain future.

In the end, I realized how little I was doing with what I was consuming and how carefree I felt in my ability to consume more tomorrow. I definitely consume this many bottles in a year, yet I marvel at how this woman kept them or found those that others failed to keep (via sixteen-miles).

So back to business design... It made me wonder...

How might we better design products so that they can
be there tomorrow for us or for someone else to use them or get value
them?

How might we make thriftiness a daily routine? Something to be cherished? Something thrilling?

How might we make one person's trash another person's recyclable? In urban or rural environments?

06/12/2009

On his Design Thinking blog, Tim asked one of the central questions that should be answered when designing an innovation strategy. I've been challenging leaders and innovators with it this way:

What's our inspiration for innovation?

For some, it's people-related. For others, it's technology-related. For others, it's money-related. My sister, an accomplished physician and medical researcher, is motivated by the thrill of scientific discovery. I can work with that. My buddy Joe loves to structure a deal and measures it based on the financial outcome. That one is a bit tougher (and has led to some fallout), but ok. My travel agent Janine truly loves serving people and giving them great travel experiences. Bingo. I'm not judging right now, they're just different.

This isn't just some higher-order, transcendental kind of question though. The way Tim posed it is key: what advantage does a purpose
give you and what does a lack of purpose say about your ability to do
anything new and interesting over the long-haul?

The answer to the purpose / inspiration question has implications for what an organization should be good at and how it should align its processes and strategy as a result. It says something about how an organization should differentiate itself both in the market and back at the ranch. You can be in the exact same industry, yet have a very different purpose and be quite successful. It frees you up to answer the classic Levitt / Marketing Myopia question more fluidly and perhaps span industries.

But the people aspect is what's primal.

Purpose is inspirational and engaging. Inspiration feeds purpose.
Inspiration and engagement drives innovation. To sustain innovation,
you need to sustain inspiration and engagement. You might get an extra
dose of self-motivated passion from some individuals for a period of
time, but they often burn out or leave (we call them "innovators",
"mavericks" or "insane"). To have it scale, perhaps you have to select for engagement through hiring and engage broadly through purpose?

The answer to the question gets people up in the morning and excited to come to work most days, staying late to accomplish something amazing or taking a risk nobody's taken before. If you could hire your strategy and innovation team based on their fundamental engagement with a purpose, you likely would.

I suspect that one of the reasons mission, values and purpose statements are so distasteful is that they don't align with what really happens in a company. Consistent disappointment isn't going to consistently get people giving their all. So when companies manage out the connections its a long-term killer and when they half-heartedly try to get them back, it's sometimes just as bad.

I led with some examples of personal motivation. I think that an organization's purpose serves as one basis for forming community collective. Some purposes are more suited to community; especially when there are strong cultural norms. Perhaps that's why some innovative organizations are smaller or why some innovation is pursued most passionately and effectively by individuals?

Whew! What a great question. More on the central questions for designing an innovation strategy soon.

I woke up this morning thinking about risk, innovation, growth, long-term growth gaps and near-term success. I thought about the adage "pigs get slaughtered" and it occurred to me that deer in headlights get run over.

Companies and leaders, the ones that are interested in doing something better, are out there making investments, learning, experimenting and setting themselves up for the next round of growth. I know because I get to work with them.

If you believe there will be a future, then betting on the future makes sense. Now is not only as good a time as ever, it's an even better time. The opportunity costs are lower. The cost of acquiring capabilities are lower. The constraints are inspiring and force you to build and do rather than ponder and strategize.

You put those two ideas together and you can see why how you make your team and teammates feel is paramount. That's been something I've been learning, albeit messily, over the last decade of project work and four years of business design. I imagine I'll be learning it for as long as I do this work.

If you want to understand this better than I could ever convey, check out chapter sixteen ("The Power of Paradox") of Orbiting the Giant Hairball.

If you want to scan a range of emotions (many of which you should avoid creating), check out the image to the right (via Kevin Kelly's Blog) from Scott McCloud's awesome book Making Comics.

05/09/2009

I heard an amazing story several weeks ago from the person that leads innovation at a very large US company. Without giving too much away, I wanted to share it.

A leader had a hunch that there was the opportunity for a low-cost, time-saving consumer product. The trick was that there was nothing else like it. To get it right would mean the team would need to develop new technology, craft a new brand and enable a whole new consumer experience. Simply put, it was going to be hard if not impossible.

The leader told their team: "You've got sevenchances. Don't come back to me until you've succeeded or you've tried and failed seven times."

The team got it right on the fifth try.

The story starts in the late 1960s. The product was launched in 1970, creating a whole new category in the process. It is still sold, quite successfully, to this day.

That's amazing innovation leadership.

If you gave somebody seven chances, how many do you think it would take for them to get it right?

I spend some part of each day working with teams to design better offerings for users on behalf of big companies. I love it.

Part of my job is to constantly search for inspiring business models, design new ones and assess the business implications of our early and evolving designs. When we're working on an established business, I'm constantly reminded that big companies have highly-evolved business models. There's a reason for it: very smart people and competition have taken them there over time.

But doing something new and better, by definition, challenges the model. I have to constantly remind myself to (respectfully) challenge them. Otherwise, we might not find the right "new" thing to do.

Arguing usually doesn't work, but designing can inspire a worthwhile change. We might design a compelling enough alternative to reconsider the
current model. Or, we might find other inspiring models to help us reconsider the
possibilities of the brand and offering.

It can feel like kicking your way out of a sleeping bag. But when it works, it's a beautiful thing.

There's a lot being written on the topic right now, especially from the standpoint of the entrepreneur. John Mullins has a great little essay on the ins and outs of business models and how entrepreneurs need to evolve into them. Colin has been doing a lot of thinking about how this thinking is translating into big companies as well as small companies.

04/05/2009

Rita Gunther McGrath has written a new book with her collaborator Ian McMillian. It's about taking a design mindset into prototyping businesses. I recommend it (and the other books they've written together).

04/03/2009

I was very lucky to be a panelist at the PSFK conference on Thursday. Thanks to Piers and the gang for the invitation and the chance to join many, many passionate people.

The topic of the panel was Sustainability - something I know very
little about. Designing better businesses and offerings perhaps. But
sustainability? Gulp. I'm not an expert and I'm generally a
hypocrite... But sure, I guess so.

Preparing, I found that the term "sustainability" really kind of sucks. It's so big and abstract that it stifles action. It gets in the way. It's one of those abstract words that can easily handcuff a team or an entire organization.

So what to do?

To loosen the cuffs and design something a bit better and a tad bit less wasteful, I think of the most "sustainable" person that I can conjure without a big research effort. My dad. It's because he's so very, very cheap.

Pops pulls steel bed frames out of dumpsters because a) the steel is worth something and b) he's thinking of things to weld. When I was growing up, he composted even though we didn't have a garden. (Now that the kids have long since relinquished the backyard he does.) As a kid, I learned to dump the lawn clippings on the compost pile but I didn't know what compost was all about.

I think Dad thought he had a better use for the garbage than the dump. I doubt he thought "I'm saving the trash truck gas." Not only did he deal with some of our organic waste, he also fixed everything we owned and sometimes made us toys (that was a bit traumatic). He still has the speakers he bought in the mid-70s. They are so old, they're are almost retro.

So if you're looking for a sustainability angle, try starting by getting inspired by someone who tries to waste nothing and spend as little as required. Someone here or there. Design for "extreme affordability" and for the output to last and see what you get.

Who do you think about when you're trying to loosen the cuffs? What would you design for my Dad*?